


am i still speaking?

by doodleyLinguist



Category: Cytus (Video Games)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canonical Character Death, Crying, Death, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Headcanon, Implied Relationships, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodleyLinguist/pseuds/doodleyLinguist
Summary: ivy and vanessa would live long enough to see the funerals of all of their friends.
Relationships: Colin Neumann Jr. | ConneR & Sagar Thakker, Ivy | OPCI_2501_IV & Colin Neumann Jr. | ConneR, Ivy | OPCI_2501_IV & Vanessa | OPCI_2501_V, Sagar Thakker & Rin | OPCI_0584_X, Simon Jackson | Xenon & Ivy | OPCI_2501_IV
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	am i still speaking?

**Author's Note:**

> this was written because I had a lot of uh. Not Pleasant emotions bottled up and something that happened today kinda tipped me over and I made this to prevent myself from crying
> 
> title is from [rounds by the oh hellos](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qmNzGjV10XY)

It's sudden, like everything with humans.

One day, Ivy could still see his stupid face, hear the smooth timbre of his voice and how frustrating the sound of it echoing down the narrow hallway of the apartment she and vanessa shared was, and the guarded half-smiles and winks that weren't really winks and insistence on archaeology and new discoveries.

The next day she wakes up to over a hundred unread messages and a silently crying Vanessa.

He’s dead. It feels wrong, like a cruel prank or a terrible misinterpretation because Colin Neumann jr. was a universal constant Ivy felt like would always be around and the prospect of him _dead_ felt improbable.

But he is. Conner is dead ~~_(\'ded\, deprived of life, no longer alive)_~~. Ivy would never get to see his face again, hear his voice (as cold and arrogant as it was at times) drill into her that she deserved to be happy and human and alive and together with Vanessa, the far and few moments where genuine smiles cracked his guarded exterior and his passionate rants about archaeology and rediscovering the past and improving the present and hopefully, the future.

They hold a funeral ~~_(fu·ner·al | \ˈfyün-rəl \ : the observances held for a dead person usually before burial or cremation)_~~ for him a week later. The world seems to move molasses slow and everything is suffocating monochrome. Everyone Ivy’s known and some others are there, gathered in a small private funeral home ~~_(an establishment with facilities for the preparation of the dead for burial or cremation, for the viewing of the body, and for funerals)_~~ around the sleek, sepia coffin.

A couple hours earlier she remembers tugging on a heavy black dress with none of the venom she's felt before, piling into a car and driving to the place in a numb haze, and quietly opening the coffin ~~_(cof·fin | \ ˈkȯ-fən \ : a box or chest for burying a corpse)_~~ when they arrived a half hour early.

Conner’s expression is too peaceful for him to look at ease, his arm draped across a crisp suit Ivy guesses has seen natural light only once in the last decade and his eye closed. She kneels on the floor besides the casket and closes her eyes too.

The tapping of Simon’s crisp leather shoes snaps her out of her grief, as his eyes, cold and hard but brittle, glance at Conner’s unnervingly relaxed face before darting to Ivy’s. He extends a hand towards her wordlessly.

It’s a formal affair ~~_(af·fair | \ ə-ˈfer \ a procedure, action, or occasion only vaguely specified)_~~. There’s no music to glorify it (which was a shame, Conner would've killed to play the antique instruments Ivy saw in the halls), no rambling speeches from strangers Conner never knew, no cameras or captures to memorialize this moment.

Simon shuffles out of his chair, the legs screeching as he pushes it back.

"Colin was a close colleague of mine." his voice, tight and only slightly wavering, begins. "Many people will—would've called him frustrating, enigmatic, two-faced, always trying to use them for a greater good- but, and those are true," a short, barking laugh, more tired than amused, "but he was also incredibly passionate about his work, intent on bettering the life and culture of the nodes, unearthing our past history, no matter what it took. His determination and good wit are something we all miss. May he rest in peace."

With only a slight shake in his legs, Simon sits back into his chair.

The rest goes similarly, with people standing up, delivering short eulogies ~~_(eu·lo·gy | \ ˈyü-lə-jē \ plural eulogies : a commendatory oration or writing especially in honor of one deceased)_~~ about Conner, and then sitting back down. Ivy hears Sagar sharply inhale, his eyes shining with tears as he stiffly pulls his chair back out. Rin rubs his shoulder gently as she pulls her hat down.

When everyone's said their piece, the coffin's transported outside to a small patch of precious greenery ~~_(green·ery | \ ˈgrēn-rē , ˈgrē-nə-rē \ plural greeneries : green foliage or plants)_~~. Everyone had picked this place out beforehand (according to Paff), when that had happened and no one was sure if they'd make it out alive, so they had decided if they were to die, at least they would be buried together.

Small tufts of grass are tossed to the side with a solemn weight, as the glossy box is lowered into the trench of dark earth. Ivy blinks away the tears ~~_(\ ˈtir \ : a drop of clear saline fluid secreted by the lacrimal gland and diffused between the eye and eyelids to moisten the parts and facilitate their motion)_~~ in her eyes as they replace the tossed clumps of dirt and cover the coffin.

And that's the last Ivy sees of Colin.

The moment Vanessa steps back into their apartment, she's curled up and covering her eyes, her face warm and wet and red as her shoulders shake with sobs and her sentences come out broken and fragmented.

"I- I can't- he- he- he's really- Ivy, he's-" she gasps, her cheeks glistening with tears as she hugs Ivy tight, rocking back and forth slowly.

Ivy squeezes her arm, looking Vanessa in the eye as she feels hot tears well up in her eyes and she begins to wordlessly cry as well.

~~_(The five stages of grief model (or the Kübler-Ross model) postulates that those experiencing grief go through a series of five emotions: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Although commonly referenced in popular culture, studies have not empirically demonstrated the existence of these stages, and the model is considered to be outdated, inaccurate, and unhelpful in explaining the grieving process.)_~~

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to write for all of the characters, but it would’ve crippled my mental health and also just result in me wallowing in emotions so I ended it at Conner 
> 
> I do have a crack-ish drabble with ivy and Conner planned later so you could take that as an apology
> 
> Also HC that Ivy searches up definitions to things as a way to cope with sudden change/loss in general, that’s why there’s dictionary definitions and a Wikipedia excerpt at the end
> 
> Instagram: [@thespaceaxolotl](https://www.instagram.com/thespaceaxolotl/?hl=en)  
> Tumblr: [@natto-axolotl](https://natto-axolotl.tumblr.com)  
> Twitter: [@NattoAxolotl](https://twitter.com/NattoAxolotl)  
> 


End file.
